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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of pigeons with gravy made from bones, fat bacon, herbs, and walnut pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 440 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Stew Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Cut the flesh from one pigeon and mix it with the livers and chopped fat bacon in a mortar.

  2. Add sweet herbs and shallot to the mixture to stuff the pigeons.

  3. Remove the legs and wings from the pigeons.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew the bones and trimmings to make gravy, adding mutton if desired.

  2. Place the pigeons in the gravy, breast side down, and turn them carefully until cooked.

  3. Thicken the gravy with port wine, flour, and butter, then add walnut pickle.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in the gravy.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the pigeons instead of running thin.
Butter
Adds fat and smooth richness to the thickened gravy.
Port wine
Adds depth and a touch of sweetness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Turning the pigeons in the gravy. Stewing at a gentle heat and turning them carefully keeps the delicate meat tender and intact. Rough handling or a hard boil can tear the flesh and toughen the meat.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, port wine, flour, butter):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, port wine, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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